Okay, so... 10-29 I got the playfield. There were some issues....grey paint in inerts, grey paint dribbled through the holes to the front side and then clearcoated over, inserts that looked crackled when light shining through them, areas damaged under the clearcoat, splotchy color layers on the blue part of the playfield. I was not happy with the issues, overall. I contacted CPR about it. They did say that it seemed that my PF had enough issues to where it should've been held back for later in the run, even though they didn't feel like it was necessarily a "second" since most of the areas in question would be covered up by things on the playfield. I expressed that I didn't really feel like I should be paying that kind of money when seconds were already up on their site with far less issues than what I had.
I had figured they would try to offer me a bit of money back, but they did offer to send me a second playfield, no cross-shipping required, and let me compare it to the one I had and send them back whichever one that I feel was inferior. I was impressed, as I feel that's not something they HAD to offer, and they did not ask me to pay for any part of the shipping. Kevin Wayte seems to be a pretty standup guy, very impressed.
All told, when they got back the last of their playfields, he could not find one for me that was in any better condition overall than what I already had. Most of them had either marks in the text somewhere, or the same splotchy "extra stars in the blue" issue that mine, and some of the other seconds have. Something with that transparent ink didn't work very well, I guess. So basically, at that point, I had been waiting for a month or so to find out if this last batch of playfields would solve my problem and this bomb drops. I get further down in his email......they offered to pull one of the ones they hold back for their team, shoot a final clearcoat layer on it, and send it to me. Impressed x2. That's WAY more than I expected in this situation, and I actually feel a little bad about it. Hopefully everyone on their team that wants one gets one, because they do deserve it, especially after all this...
Fastforward two weeks. It arrived yesterday. You can still smell the new clearcoat curing on it. It looks a MILLION times better. Only 2 of the inserts are crackled, and only 1 of the two is noticable, but it's the USA inserts at the top of the playfield that nobody will ever see closely enough for it to matter. Some very very very small areas of the splotching, which honestly, I see as completely unavoidable with this playfield after seeing these two...you'll never get a perfect one...but this one is markedly better. No paint in the inserts, in fact, the grey on the back is so light there's some small areas where the back wasn't even completely covered. You can see the wood. I'm fine with that. I can only see two little mis-registration errors, and neither one bothers me.
I'm extremely happy with how CPR has resolved this so far...I'm just waiting for instructions on how to send the other one back to them.
What I've learned about repro playfields:
They're not immaculate copies. They ARE subject to the exact same issues that the originals were, and there will be variation in registration and paint no matter how careful the printers are. Some things are completely beyond their control, like the insert crackling, and minor areas of it are acceptable. I am very anal, and I'm going to loosen my expectations up a bit if I can get ahold of a Pinbot playfield from them.
I know the CPR guys probably don't post or read over here, but I'm thorougly impressed with the lengths they've gone to, both to get this thing out in the first place, then to go through all this hassle with a first time customer who most likely would've been okay with some money back. It's rare to find companies that will go that extra bit to prove they're behind what they sell, and I really do appreciate that.
